Tag: mmorpg

In this Player Spotlight we are looking at White Willow. He seems to grab attention in GC when he is there, so we sent some questions to help us learn more about him.

GM Rikoo: Who are you and how long have you played Illy?

WW: I am a guy who has, up until Illy, played pure war strategy games. I started playing Illy in September, 2015. My real life name is Jim.

If you could add any one thing to the game, what would it be?

I think if I could add one thing to the game it would be speed, but, surprisingly not a lot. I have learned that the many layers of Illy need time to develop and those without the patience are missing the most rewarding part of the game.

If you could delete any one thing from the game, what would it be?

Deleting something is easy because Illy is a game where you don’t have to complete all parts of the game. So the player can do what they are interested in.

Who is your bestest friend of all time in Illy?

I have a lot of friends in the game and I care about all of them. To answer your question I will go with Rill for her devotion to the game.

Who is your arch nemesis?

No nemesis at this time, but that can change… you never know. I am in DSA, a peaceful training alliance and work with Pink Camo another good friend.

If you could give a tip not to newbies, but to vets, what would it be?

My tip to vets? It’s not advice on how to play the game for sure. There are many here that could play circles around me. I would say if you are bored for any reason look around you and find a friend to support.

Awesome, thanks for answering our questions, White Willow! If you would like to nominate someone for Player Spotlight, please do so by sending an email to community@illyriad.co.uk and be sure to include the name of the player and reasons why they should be highlighted!

Congrats to Kumomoto for being this month’s Player Spotlight! Let’s get to the questions!

So, you were a very early-stage Illyriad player. What’s been the biggest change over the years?

I am the oldest playing member of Illy. Biggest change? My lord! Illy has had generations of change! What is a better question is what hasn’t changed in Illy over that time? And the answer is the newbie-friendly nature of the game…

H?’s first war was against an alliance named White which stood for ganking newbies… We espoused an opposite attitude and went to war over it. We won. And then Starry started Toothless?, which was the first training alliance (training alliances are alliances where newbies can join and noone will attack them and they learn. And, most importantly, all the other alliances respect these players and stay away from them). This model took off and now there are lots of great training alliances in game. And all the major alliances have espoused the newbie protection ethos we started and, imo, the game is very different from others because of it.

Surely you have a good war story. Tell us one. Or two.

Stay tuned to GC… I tell them periodically!

Has it been challenging to keep foes guessing, or do you always rely on similar battle tactics each time you get in a scrap?

At H?, we have constantly modified our tactics based upon current game usage, game mechanics, and our strategies and tactics. We’ve won 7 and lost one (albeit the largest one! ugh!)…

In the last war (and largest war in the history of Illy), there were 42 attempted sieges on my two accounts’ cities. Not one was captured or razed. (A lot were exodused though!). Shows that when you are outnumbered 10:1 you can still “swamp fox” in Illy! Many millions of enemy troops lost their lives in those attempts…

Do you sometimes wish you could start over in Illy? If you did, would you want to know what you know now or would you want to know nothing… you know?

If I started over, I’d wish I wasn’t such an arrogant ass to a lot of people I actually respect… I regret some of the things I said and would take them back.

Who is your favorite player? Why?

Tough one! I probably have to say two people: Starry and ScottFitz. Starry for having the vision (and the huge effort she put in) to create the template for training alliances in Illy. And ScottFitz for being one of the leaders of a major alliance with the most integrity I have seen in online gaming ever…

Who is your nemesis? Why?

I don’t really have a nemesis today! Diablito was a good one at one time… Because he was all for ganking newbies and totally did not stand for what we did!

What is your greatest achievement in Illy?

I don’t have one. H?, on the other hand, under KillerPoodle and other Directors’ tutelage, greatest achievement, is fostering this culture of being receptive to new players. I think it is utterly unique in online games. Haven’t seen it elsewhere and we are really proud of starting it…

This month’s Player Spotlight focuses on Martilicious. She’s been a real headache wonderful player for a while now, despite her obsession with crushing sugar-based snacks.

How long have you been playing?

I founded my first city on Friday 2nd May 2014. So I’ve been here for over a year and STILL haven’t completed all research or built my first city the way I want it, because the things I need to build keep changing.

I know you came with the LoU crew… so how has Illy compared to that game now that you have played for a while?

I have played LOU, Evony and some space type game (I lasted about a week). Compared to all other games, Illy is the most complex, with so many layers. Just when I think I understand it, something else crops up…

Surely you hit players in PvP in LoU, so why don’t you kill everyone in Illy?

*Gasp* I never killed anyone. Ever. I am a peaceful crafter. Fact. Anyone who says differently will get a visit from my siege army. If I had one, obviously.

If you could add anything — and I mean ANYTHING — to Illy, what would you add?

I will take that as a promise that anything I mention here WILL be added, thanks! I’d love to see the ability to cancel trade unit movement, larger groups of simien wolves and a surprised smiley :O . Giving me control of the hammer would be AWESOME, I would not abuse that at all, definitely not.

Give me a good Illy memory.

The welcome I received on first joining always stands out. Despite not receiving a welcome message and mail from Kodabear (hard to believe, I know) I muddled through with a lot of help, and still am. One day soon (TM) I may not need to ask questions…. I also remember joining my alliance and enjoy every day in Alliance Chat – the work that goes into an alliance is amazing. The yoga classes are pretty cool too.

Give me a bad Illy memory.

I almost cried the day I killed 69 skinners. And the day I hit the 12 day research thinking it was 12 hours. And all those times I sent the cotters on a 16 day journey to harvest minerals.

If you can honestly predict how long you will play, in freakily-accurate numbers, tell me the date and time.
I will throw this one back at the Dev team and the Illy community…. I will play for as long as I am engaged and having fun. So keep on adding new stuff, play nice, keep me interested and I’ll be here.

Who is your in-game nemesis?

I looked up nemesis, and one definition is ‘a downfall caused by an inescapable agent.’ I have 2 candidates (details on my profile folks!) hrandjt and System.

I have heard that there is a player named Fiona Withadot. Are you flattered that someone is impersonating you? Why would they do that?

There is?? Where?!?! I have heard of this upstart. She is barely a dot on my radar. I have also heard that a few dwarves like her. Shameful. She thinks she is all cute with her pointy ears… I will catch her one day and show her what orcs do to elves. 🙂 As to why she would impersonate me, obviously she has no life.

If you had one thing to say to your enemies, what would it be? (You can curse. Don’t worry, I’ll change all of the curse words to the words BUNNY BUTT.)

I have enemies? Where?? Is it that impersonater? Did she say something? Don’t listen to her, she’s nuts. I mean how can you listen to someone who claims to be a Saint? See, I didnt curse and you dont have to use Bunny Butt to cover it up. Which, by the way, totally replaces any curse word. 🙂

Be honest: You come to socialize, conquer, trade or all of the above?

haha Depends on who you ask. I want to say conquer but if you ask my alliance mates they will probably say socialize. Secretly, I want all the gold. 🙂

If you had a beeeelion dollars, what would you program into Illy?

I think a Navy would be pretty cool. Ships, subs, gun ships, battle stations. (Wait, battle stations? Is that a Star Wars reference? hehe) Could you imagine a fleet of ships 100k strong coming at you? That would look pretty awesome on the water. Green and red getting ready to clash. And ahem… Audrey’s quest more…ummm solvable…..

What do HATE about Illy? Be honest or we will know and then we will attack you with mammoths.

Rikoo…. I’m an orc, mammoths don’t scare me, now your guards… that’s another story. What do I hate about Illy? Can’t say theres anything I hate, but things that can get annoying… not being able to recall harvesters in a 90 second window. Spider NPC’s are pretty scary, I never hit them. I avoid them. I dont want spider parts in my inventory…. Spider fangs?? Ugh. I do, however, have mammoth parts…. 😀

How many times have you made a mistake in Illy? Tell us about one of those times.

Ha! If I had 1 gold for every mistake I made, I would have a few million collected by now. Recently though, (rolls eyes and a few curse words) I had a scout army that just got back home. 1 troop, 5k scouts (not the cheap ones either) I then sent an army out to a horde of rats. I realized about 10 min before they hit that it was my scouts. Sigh.. Plus side, gold was in the black for a bit. 🙂 I did a moment of silence for them, it was tragic.

Which other MMOs do you play? If you do play others, what do you like to do in those other MMOs?

Honestly, I have never really played other MMOs. Illy is my first one. I have looked for other ones since starting Illy and frankly none compare to this game. Illy has spoiled me for all other games. I also notice playing this game im a bit more fearless than I used to be. So when I look at other games, I look for ones that have good fighting. Because, it’s fun!

How many dragolichs would a dragolich drag if a dragolich could drag wood?

I pondered this question awhile. Then I got a headache, had to lie down. Got up took some asprin and still didnt know what you asked. So I googled it. I was clueless as to what a dragolich was, turns out if it weren’t for google I still wouldn’t know. So my guess is….42 🙂

While the server booted up for the first time on the 21st of February 2010, players didn’t get access until the 22nd; so that’s the official start date for this grand journey.

In that time we’ve seen many, many changes to the game.

For those who weren’t around at the beginning, here’s a sample of what you missed from the early days! We started off with a “world tree” theme around the borders, with all the content placed inside large scrolls.

The town map was a very different beast:

The world map was randomly generated (rather than hand-drawn) in those days, so there were no rivers, no seas or lakes, no sprawling forests or mountain ranges and no regions; just a mish-mash of different squares. The world map, with Chat version 1 visible is seen below. Note the awesome way the arctic area blends with the rest of the map. Subtle, huh?

Gone on 125 million military missions and nearly 40 thousand sieges for a total of 1.6 billion casualties

Sent 104 million ingame mails and spoken 334 million words in chat. That’s the equivalent of the entire works of Shakespeare 377 times over, or the equivalent of 425 Bibles – in chat alone. I won’t speak to the relative quality of the text 😉

287,000 players have been through the gates, settling 350,000 towns across 1,300 alliances

You have collectively played 22,364,898.12 hours of Illyriad

That’s 931,870.75 days or 2,553 years!

During this 5-year period we have had just under 6 hours of unscheduled downtime, and 15 hours of downtime in total (including patches and server moves).

We’ve often stated that we are applying lessons learned from our work on Age of Ascent to Illyriad. Some things you’ve seen, some you’ve not – a lot of have been slightly abstract and based around infrastructure and capabilities. They have all made the game better and helped it to run smoother.

However, today we’d like to share something even more concrete; and hopefully a little more exciting than the existing benefits that AoA development has provided to Illyriad, such as progression graphs and private chat (even if TC thinks graphs are exciting).

Please bear in mind this is early days and there is a lot more to come and improvements to be made. We are not yet at an beta stage and taking bug reports, but…

This time, the Player Spotlight goes out to King Korr. I received quite a few nominations for the player so hopefully his answers won’t be horrible. If they are, siege him and then bring me his gold! MUAHAHA!

I’m kidding. He seems like a great guy and wonderful player!

Answers below. Thanks KK!

How long have you been playing Illy?

I have be a royal in the land of Illyriad for two and a half year’s now. In that time I saw and faced many horrors including the naked Elf Forest and discovering what a trout slap is. (We don’t want to know – Rikoo)

When you first played, what do you remember thinking first?

My very first thought was ‘what have I stepped in to?’ — as compared to the other games I had played online before Illy, they were quite simple while Illy has a lot of depth to it. There are still mysteries that have yet to be solved, and I am still learning things about the game to this day.

Why do you think people have nominated you for Player Spotlight?

I’d like to think it’s for the help I give members in Wheel of Time or Heroes of the Horn, as they are the main two alliances I have been in. I would even help members with tasks that would require me to leave the alliances for a period of time. Plus, I sort of keep the Mule Master from getting up to any trouble …

It’s more than likely I let the maidens get me in to trouble and mischief in alliance chat. As my fellow alliance members will tell you, I am a quiet and shy person and I never lead anyone astray ( /me looks over shoulders to make sure TheDiva, LadyDianna and Kylinneira ain’t in ear-shot!)

If you had developer powers…. no, scratch that – if you had MORE than developer powers and could make the game do anything, what would you like to add to it?

One simple word: DRAGONS!

Okay let me expand on that. Illy is a land with magic and fantasy creatures in it yet there isn’t a dragon in sight! We have all type of units to use spear, sword, bow and mounted troops but as of yet no aerial troops. Just think if players could assign dragons to their armies… it would add a whole new level to the game! Each race could have their own type of dragon, and humans have firebreathing (which would be good on plains. Dwarves could have drakes which suit mountains and the same with elves and orcs.)

I would also make a quest of it so players have to got through certain steps to unlock the research such as finding hidden knowledge so their saddle makers and mages could learn how to safely control the dragons without having them eating your people. You could also have a handicap so for each dragon you have, you lose a certain amount of food or cow production.

I’d also like to allow troops to move via way points! Like, being able to send troops from A to B to C without having to go back to A would be a massive time saver and wouldn’t have a big an impact on the game.

How important do you think PvP is to Illyriad?

I’d say quite important, as it’s another layer to explore and master in Illy. If you’re attacking a player or another alliance, each involves different things to make sure you have a chance of success. Even if you are attacking, you still have to think of defense for your troops that will be sieging cities, unless your goal is not to capture but to make sure your target can’t rebuild their stockpile of troops to hit you back.

If they do hit you back and you or your alliance loses all your troops, it’s making sure to have supplies set up to make sure you can rebuild quickly enough.

Why do you play Illyriad? You can be honest with me. Go ahead.

The people, the community in Illy is great. In the time I’ve been playing I’ve meet some great people who I talk to outside of the game. Even though I have been playing for two and a half years I’ve yet to find or hear of another game that has a community that is so friendly and helpful. Newbies are sometimes wary of the great greetings they get when they start as they think we only send the res if we get something in return, which is sort of true as each player that stays and grows adds to Illy, which mean’s we all gain!

Where can Illy improve the most?

Magic! Magic in Illy is so badly under-used and developed, like we have a magetower but yet can not recruit mages to accompany troops or to bewitch cities on the far part of the map (make them like traders with increasing upkeep the more you have). It would give those that want to explore the magical part off Illy more depth from the game.

You have a choice between the biggest and most powerful armies in the game or the largest and most profitable trade business; what do you choose?

Armies every time! I have answered the call of the Viking and it’s seeped into my blood!

Thanks again to King Korr for answering our questions. Now, go bug him in game!

Hello everyone and welcome to another Player Spotlight! This time we’re talking with Jane DarkMagic, a long-time Illy player.

How long have you played Illy for? What first attracted you to the game?

I’ve played for just over 3 years since August 2011. I started playing Illy after I rage quit Evony for the second time. I had duo’ed a level 16 historic city with my husband and our own alliance stole it out from under us. Illy has some similarities, in that it’s a city-building strategy game, but is more of a sandbox and the impact of your diplomatic decisions last a much longer time since the server never resets. The devs are also much more responsive to serious problems and cheating.

Your name is evil. Why is your character SO EVIL?

I borrowed my surname from a Penny Arcade podcast. They play Dungeons and Dragons and my favorite player character is named Jim Darkmagic. My character is definitely evil though. A little in-game conflict makes it much more interesting. I am never without an in-game nemesis, and I think I would be bored if I had to play nice.

If you could control one of your friend’s armies to attack anyone you’d like, which friend would you control and who would you attack?

I would use Scottfitz’s army to attack Tanyafairy. She hates magic bears, and I think war would be a blast.

NPCs are fun. Which NPC would you want in your army?

I want snufflehumpsters(spelling?). Kill them with cuteness. No one can be mad after being attacked by adorable little cuddly rodents.

Tell us something you did in Illy.. that no one knows about. Bearing in mind we have impressionable children listening.

I once created a secret alt and had it run for leader of ecrow on it’s first day in the game. Kenyl was very passionately opposed to his candidacy. I’ve also got myself banhammered on purpose on several occasions in solidarity with other mcrow members. Of course, people know about both of those, but I’m terrible with secrets so there’s nothing I haven’t shared with my friends.

Have you ever thieved someone and then felt guilty about it later?

I’ve never been caught thieving, and I will admit nothing.

What advice would you give to a newbie? How about a vet?

To a newbie: Illy is all about the people. Makes friends wherever you can and never be afraid to speak your mind. To a vet: I would advise them to not siege players out of the game, even during war. People tend to quit and then the community is that much weaker for it.

Thanks again to Jane for answering our questions! She won a free trip to The Long White and a wad of mammoth fur!

For a long time, transfers of Prestige between accounts have either had to go via the Alliance prestige pool or using sitting rights. With sitting rights, one player would give rights to an account, and the sitter would then buy the Prestige and step out of the account. This has led to some players reportedly being scammed (“I didn’t receive the gold they promised!”) or – illegal according to the TOS – players swapping sign-in and password information.

Now prestige scan be transferred directly to anyone or sold on the open market at a trade hub, by using prestige scrolls. Let’s say that player A wants to give the new player B some prestige to help them along.

All player A needs to do is go into their Library’s new Resource Production area, make sure to have the correct amount of Prestige, books, mana, research and reagents and click Make – player A now instantly has a Prestige scroll that can be given or sold to player B. Player B then redeems the scroll in their Reading Room.

Be aware that items in transit, including prestige scrolls, are vulnerable to blockade, so be careful when shipping these valuable new items.

Prestige scrolls are regular items and will show in your towns’ and hub inventories. They can be placed in hub buy and sell orders as regular craftable items, and appear in the “Exotic” category.

Prestige scrolls can only be created from personal prestige, not from alliance prestige.

The creation and use of prestige scrolls is recorded and is shown on your prestige history page.

SERVER-SIDE MONITORING & DIAGNOSTICS

We have improved our server-side monitoring and diagnostics so we can be aware of a problem and try to fix it before you are aware. It also provides rich information and extra detail around issues to allow us to more quickly diagnose potential issues. We have already resolved a number of long term issues this way.

Sharing some insights, below is a graph around the time the Heart of Corruption began beating. The early response time peak is a deployment for improved Windows 8.1 support (do feel free to vote for us in the store!) which required a full server code refresh and so a brief response time hit as the dlls were jit compiled:

You can also see the server’s daily heart beat or ebb and flow of player demands (this is over a week). The later half of the graph increases in requests per second as you (the players) activate the Heart of Corruption and then in response start sending thousands upon thousands of missions to it and the corrupted temples.

CHANGES TO IMAGE, CSS & SCRIPT HOSTING

We have moved where and how we host our images, css and javascript files. Hopefully, this has been transparent to you, the players, as mostly the files are cached in your browser and they aren’t requested that much, per player. However, players occasional requests as a group and new players’ requests do add up as can be seen on the graphs below:

The graph on the left shows when we swapped over the DNS to point at the new resource, and you can actually see the dns update propagating over the internet as the new resource slowly ramped up in requests thoughout the day. The second graph shows the now current day to day activity; do bear in mind these files should be cached for a long time for returning players so those requests shouldn’t show up here, however this does include images on our out of game site (like www).

HTTPS SECURE ACCESS

As part of the reason for the change above, we are now more consistent on when we can serve secure image files, so you can now use Illyriad over https if you so desire:

MAIL NEXT & PREVIOUS ITEMS

Mail items now have next and previous buttons inside individual mails to move you through the mail without having to return to the full mail list:

The next and previous buttons are category aware, so if you are in a subcategory e.g. sent or trade they will just navigate you through available mails in that subcategory.

COMBAT XML API

We’ve reinstated the Combat XML API system, so that you can can individually, as players, choose to share your combat reports with third parties. You’ve always been able to do this on an individual report basis, by using the “XML” button at the bottom of each combat report in-game mail.

However, you can now generate an API key in the Account & Preferences area of the User Interface. If you generate and give this API key to other players, they can then access a listing of all your combat reports since you issued your first key, and then drill down into each individual combat report just as if you’d sent them each report via in-game mail.

We can see this being useful for any builder of third party tools, an alliance that wants to track their collective members’ military actions and/or any player who wants to make a killboard for (eg) the purposes of player-run tournaments.

The API key is something that an individual player can generate, and revoke (or rather, generate a new key) from their Account & Preferences page in the “API Keys” submenu.It differs from the individual combat report XML in that it is a generic key which essentially says “I hereby grant the holder of this key the right to access all my non-covert combat event logs in XML format until such time as I revoke the key by changing it“.A player who issues a Combat API Key can then use this unique, individual key to query a page that will produce a list of combat events that can then be queried via the individual report identifier, and they can share this key with anyone they choose.

Players can pass their Combat API key to third parties (such as alliance techies, or killboard website operators) and these third parties can then query this page on behalf of the player, and retrieve the individual combat reports for every combat this player has been involved in.
ISSUING & REVOKING YOUR COMBAT API KEY

Go to your Account & Preferences page and click on the API submenu:

You will have a list of keys here – or, on your first visit, the option to issue a Combat Reports API Key for the first time.To create a Combat Reports API Key, press the “Generate” button.If you already have a key, pressing “Generate” will instantly disable your current key and generate a new one for you; thereby preventing access to your combat reports by anyone who knows your old key.

Account sitters can generate and/or revoke API keys.

SUPPRESSING INDIVIDUAL COMBATS FROM DISPLAYING TO KEY HOLDERS

For whatever reason (doubtless nefarious!) you might not want a specific, particular combat to appear in the Combat Report list you’ve made available to anyone with your API Key.

You can suppress individual combat reports from appearing on the list if you check the Is Covertoption checkbox on the “Send Army” page before you dispatch the army outbound. You will need to have researched Covert Operations in the Military research tree to see this option.
USING THE API KEY TO GET AN XML LIST OF AVAILABLE COMBAT REPORTS – A PROGRAMMERS’ GUIDEIf you’re not a programmer, then the following is probably not relevant, and you can skip over the next couple of sections!

The API Key is in the format:

[Server Name]–[KeyType]–[Key]

This helps you identify which server to query (we currently only have elgea) and what page to query with the key.

This identifies this key as being good for pulling data from Server [elgea] for Combat Reports [COMRP], and the remainder of the key is an encrypted piece of data that identifies the player to us (twinned with the rights he has given to this key).

A list of combat events that this player has been involved in, along with the <personalcombatkey> identifier so you can then go off and query the specific event for the full details, using:https://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/external/combatreport/[insert <personalcombatkey> here]

You do not need to be logged in to access the Combat API listing or any individual Combat API report, so long as you have the key!

This new report has a less than or equal to ( <= ) <datacomplete id> than the one you currently have:

WHEN TRUE (YES, YOU HAVE THIS “NEW” REPORT ALREADY AND THE VERSION YOU HAVE IS AS GOOD AS, OR BETTER THAN, THE NEW REPORT) THEN

Don’t query this report – you already have everything you need

WHEN FALSE (NO, THIS “NEW” REPORT HAS MORE ACCURATE DATA THAN THE REPORT YOU CURRENTLY HAVE) THEN

Query this report using the <personalcombatkey id> and replace your existing report with this one

ELSE

This is a new report and you should import it

The reason we have the datacomplete flag is because different players can get slightly different versions of the same combat report (eg “Your army was completely destroyed and you heard nothing of its’ fate” vs “You completely whupped that guy, here’s the report”).

2. You don’t need to query the complete player history every time, to decide what’s new

Obviously we don’t want you to be querying a complete player history every time you pull the API key.

So there is an additional parameter we’d like you to use when you subsequently query view_combat_reports_api.asp – this parameter is called [since]. [since] is based on the actual combat occurrence date, not the date that the army was originally sent, so it should be a historic record.

This should be set to the most recent <combatoccurrencedate> for the <player ID> whose key you are using.

If you don’t have any data for this player so far, then please do not provide the [since] parameter.

Because there is a chance that you might have two combat events from the same player occurring at the same second, we will return the event(s) you already have at that datetime stamp, so please be prepared to ignore the first couple of events returned – as you may already have them (see above for how to decide).

The [since] parameter is in the same format it was provided in originally in the <combatoccurrencedate>field of the last report you have from this player, such as: 2014-08-06T03:09:10

… which will only return those combat events related to the player since (and including) the event that occurred on the [since] timestamp.

HOW OFTEN CAN I QUERY A PLAYER’S API KEY?

For the purposes of development, we haven’t yet set a limit.

However, we will probably impose a limit for a particular key query (from the same querying source) at some point in the future, simply to preserve server resources and bandwidth. It all rather depends on how you player-programmers choose to use the API key system!

WHAT DATA IS AVAILABLE

Combat report data is only available from the moment that any API key is generated by a player. You cannot access historic records from before the first API key was generated, except via the direct link provided at the bottom of your ingame mail combat report.

MOVING TROOPS

Things got a little wild around the Heart of Corruption as huge numbers of missions piled into it. Unfortunately this caused some noticable slow-downs in the browser pages getting updates to their movements when the map was focused on the HoC.

To resolve this we throttled what was sent to the map to display a maximum of 1 mission icon (per type) per quarter square – and a maximum of 75 missions on the visible map (per type) at any time, focused around the map center.

Recently we asked players to submit a name for the newly discovered massive strip of water that lies between Elgea and The Broken Lands. While we knew that we’d get a lot of entries, we weren’t prepared for how good many of them would be! Some players submitted several at once, while other players preferred a single entry that was complete with definitions and origin. Just reading through the thread was a lot of fun.

Originally we were just going to pick the winner and announce it. Finally we decided to put up three different choices to see if the community backed up our original decision. We listed The Bitter Sea (submitted by Canesrule) or The Sea of Mercy (submitted by Arctic55) or Gateway to Wealth (LadyLifeGrows.) These are all great names because they are simple, easy to understand even for newbies, seem to have a story behind them and would read easily on the map. There were several names that were submitted but were other names for a developer or alliance and we didn’t want it to seem like we were pulling favorites.

In the end, the votes echoed what we thought: The Bitter Sea is a brilliant name! The name also has a history in Illyriad. It used to be the name of a forum where players were allowed to vent more freely than we normally allow. It was closed due to a leaking roof and rat infestation.

The name The Bitter Sea does not need to be explained to feel epic or dangerous; it just feels like something an old sea captain might call it. Congrats to Canesrule for suggesting it, and enjoy your journeys across the newly-named sea!

Another nomination from the community, this month we get to know Mohit! We received SO many nominations for him, probably breaking all previous records.Learn more about the Player Spotlight program at our website and nominate players by sending an email to community@illyriad.co.uk. The player who gets the nomination can choose between a t-shirt from our shop or from 1200 Prestige! So, to the interview!

So, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Hello, My name is Mohit and I am glad to be given an opportunity to be in the Spotlight. I really appreciate the efforts of all those who voted for me, thank you all!

What brought you to Illyriad and how long have you been playing?

One day I was looking for an online strategy game, and then I found this. It has been a nice experience to play the game since then. I have been playing Illy for more than 2 years now and hope to play it till I finish the game (like Urp! did!)

Have you played many other online games or been active in other online communities?

Well to be honest I have played many, many other games where I play maximum for a week and then leave the game. So I have not been as active in any other online community, nothing else gives that Illy-like feel! 😉

Any hidden talents or interesting hobbies outside of gaming?

Oh yes ! Well, I don’t know if that is to be discussed here! But I like to go out with friends, enjoy the moment of laughter with them but most of my time is taken by gaming, work or sleep.

What keeps you playing Illyriad?

As many have said, I also feel the same: it’s the Community. It keeps you glued to the game. General chat can do wonders for you if you are having an off day. Then I have the amazing members in my alliance who make me feel like being in their shoes and doing things like they do ( not talking about you Hoover 😛 lol! ) That is an amazing factor if you realize they have become a family in another world, even if you don’t want to achieve something in the game you want to come online to meet them or chat with them. I love that aspect of the game. I believe through this game that I have made friends all over the world, with whom I may or may not meet in my real life but will be sharing a beer or coffee with them online here in Illy.

What’s your favorite aspect of the game?

The community is of course one of my favorite aspect of the game. I also love the fact that this game continues to bring something new to the table every now and then. True, this process has slowed down, but heh, this is the favorite and most awaited aspect of the game: something new and awesome from the developer team !

What’s your proudest achievement in game so far?

Being in the spotlight is the proudest of them all, for the very simple reason is that many people voted for it. It was truly an amazing surprise and I want to send thanks to you guys again! 🙂 The second-best moment was when I was given an opportunity to share in leading Bane. It was an honor and really made me feel proud.

What are you most looking forward to for the future of Illyriad?

First I would like to thank the devs for creating a vision of what we can expect, without it I couldn’t answer this question. I am looking forward to the new schools of magic and hope that it gives a new dimension to the game. Then I am waiting for the use of all the extra t3 resources (advanced herbs, anatomies and rare gems) that do not have any use at the moment, and I wonder how their use will affect the game. The Live Factions are always a thing that intrigues me. They could give alliances and their diplomatic work a new dimension and hopefully will make quests more interesting.

What area of the game do you think needs the most improvement?

In my view, the defense mechanism needs some improvement. The game supports the attackers too much. Then I would love to see a draft option in the mailing system. Next, an option to make our own chat room would be great! Many times two group of people tend to love or fight each other so much that other people tend not to interfere. Having an option to create a chat room for them would spare GC from the assault and those who want to be part of the chat could be invited in it.

What advice would you give a new player in Illyriad?

Play as you wish! This is a sandbox game. You can be anything you like! Just make sure you make friends on the way to the top — and not enemies. And, of course, in case you guys need anything there are awesome people in GC waiting to help you guys! (Rillbot is 24×7 available 😛 ) At the end of this I just want to thank you all, and I feel lucky to be part of such a great community.

Thanks to Mohit for accepting the nomination and for taking the time to answer our questions!